Grab Bag Fever   
from Sanya Thomas    
2002-09-27 17:41:09    

Questions from all over:

Q: I thought the eight character slots option would be in the last patch?

A: Many people made this assumption, because the letter from our president with our future intentions was included in the patch notes. However, we do not have that option coded yet. We are going to make sure you have the option by the time Shrouded Isles is launched so that you can explore the new races and classes, even if you already have four characters on your favorite server.


Q: Are the new races restricted to the new classes, or can the new races be the old classes too?

A: The new races can be some of the old classes. Keep watching the Shrouded Isles page for more details.


Q: Will Shrouded Isles be playable over a 56K modem?

A: Yes. The expansion requires a strong video card/computer rig to make the most of the new eye-candy (although it is playable on lesser systems, you just won’t get the ooh-shiny effects), and the new engine is going to make a big difference in framerate, but we’re not doing anything that will affect the rate of data transfer.


Q: When I trained in (insert spell line here), my trainer said I gained power in that spell line, but I did not see any new spells. Did I miss something?

A: After the first few levels, you don’t always get new spells when you add spec points. But there are changes behind the scenes. For instance, your minimum damage floor gets raised, so your average damage becomes higher. And base spells you already have will become more effective, especially at the higher levels where your spec and the level of the base spell are different. (The closer your spec is to the level of the spell, the more effective that spell will be.)


Q: I was in the new RVR dungeon, and a yellow-to-me Innocent nailed me with a disease. It lasted an extremely long time. Was this intentional?

A: Yep. There are several classes that get “Cure Disease” at a very low level – seek one out for relief, because Disease in DAOC means that you don’t regen any hit points, and that any heals you get are only half as effective. In other words, if someone tries to heal you for twenty hit points, you will only be healed by ten.

By the way, I had better mention that we have a bug with the way diseased people display hit points after they zone. If you have a disease and zone, there is a chance that your hit points will display as full – even if you only have one hit point with no chance of regenerating more due to your illness. Getting this fixed is on our top ten list – but until then, please be very careful when zoning with a disease.


Q: There seems to have been a change to poisons in 1.53. In some cases, they are as effective as they ever were. But in other cases, they seem to be doing less damage. Yes or no?

A: This answer I give with some serious embarrassment. I was told about half an hour ago that a patch note was left out of 1.53. Poisons, like all other forms of damage, are now set on the damage resist table. That resist type is “body” damage. So anyone with a high body resist is going to suffer less from poison damage, and the other resist types will have no effect. Poison was the only sort of damage that had no possible resist, so the verdict (AFTER consulting a number of assassins) was that this change was necessary. However, it was NOT properly documented, and for that I am truly sorry.


Q: Can I “recopy” my character to Pendragon after deleting the copy that’s already there?

A: Not at this time. While the copying process is automatic, it’s flagged as “one to a customer,” and we don’t have the resources necessary to make further copies by hand unless the original copy was bugged. And, if that’s the case, please contact us before you delete the character to let us know what happened.


Q: Why did my “PVP safety flag” turn off on (insert name of server NOT ending in Dred here)?

A: Check out the patch notes. There’s a PVP invulnerability flag that now operates in certain places, to prevent lurking players from attacking people not yet in control of their avatars.


Q: What is my Account ID that Mythic is always asking for when I fill out forms?

A: Your account ID is also known as your log in name. Not the CD key number, and DEFINITELY not your password. Remember, no one from Mythic will ever ask you for your password. Please don’t give that to anyone.


Q: I am a cloth caster. My 48th level armor has an AF of 48, and the effective AF does not go up when the bonus does. My other non-cloth wearing characters have a higher AF when the bonus goes up. Is this on purpose?

A: Yes, because the bonus has nothing to do with the AF of the armor. The bonus only kicks in at the time someone or something is attempting to inflict grievous bodily harm on you. The factor that is making the affective AF rise on your other characters is the absorption – which, as a cloth caster, you do not have.



Well, judging from the questions folder, you’re mostly insatiably curious about Shrouded Isles testing. As I posted earlier, the registration form for open beta will be open starting Monday afternoon for 24 hours, and the open beta testers will be randomly selected from that pool. We are as excited as you are, and look forward to having the community crawl over our newest classes and races and helping us to refine them.

See you here next week, same time, same bat channel. Thanks for reading!